Originally published in the Sunday Guardian (Aug 26th) by a Guest Author and was republished by the Energy Chamber
Last Tuesday, Trinidad and Tobago shook with a powerful earthquake, making many of us fear for our lives. Thankfully, despite some material damage, no lives were lost.
This coming Tuesday, T&T’s most totemic company may be heading towards a much more welcome major shakeup. On that day, Petrotrin’s board will be sharing with the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union leadership its plans for the company’s future.
We need a major shakeup at Petrotrin if we are to have a national oil company at all. After all, Petrotrin is bloated, inefficient, up its neck with debt and without money to invest in new capital projects. It’s unviable as a going concern without radical improvements.
OWTU’s members are planning prayers by the PM’s residence. Prayers, indeed, may be a good idea, but not perhaps for the same reasons as OWTU’s. We must all pray that Petrotrin’s board will put forward difficult but essential reforms. Including much needed reductions in how much it spends on its workforce.
We must also pray that OWTU’s leadership, especially its president, Mr Ancil Roget, will behave in a sober, measured and sensible way, for the sake of its membership and, more importantly, for the sake of the nation.
Disagreement is natural. Good industrial relations include vigorous debate, as long as it is based on a genuine attempt to reach the best possible outcome for all. But good industrial relations also include a sense of realism.
When a trade union sits down with a company’s leadership, it must be aware of how the business is performing and the likely outcome to long term employment if action is not taken. It’s the kneejerk reaction of having tantrums whilst ignoring the real world that left us already without a steel plant. We can’t afford to lose a refinery for the same reason.
We must all face the situation we are in. What was supposed to be a symbol of an independent, proud and successful Trinidad and Tobago, our state-owned oil company became a reflection of everything that’s wrong in our land.
It became an extension of the political world, used as a populist tool for the government of the day. It ignored good management practice for the convenience of avoiding any confrontation with the OWTU, as if doing so would be a betrayal of labour leaders of the past who, effectively, also started the fight for self-rule. Ironically, in reality they betrayed our former labour leaders by making the largest T&T state-owned business a failure and an embarrassment.
On Tuesday, Mr Roget will have a historical and unique moment to side with common sense and the good of the nation (and, by definition, the good of his membership). He can go down in history as the man who helped save a national symbol. More than that, as the man who helped turned a national symbol into a world leader.
Or he can go down in history as the man who sank any chance of us having a viable and thriving national oil company, even if that meant some short term pain for his members.
In Venezuela, fatefully wrong decisions were made about its state-owned oil company, PDVSA, for short-term gains by the Chavez regime. The result: a moribund company, producing considerably less than it used to and with decaying infrastructure beyond salvation.
In neighbouring Colombia, state-owned Ecopetrol is run as a proper company, and it is bringing more and more profit to the government through efficient management. In the second quarter of this year alone, it generated USD 1.17 billion in net profit, and announced plans to invest between USD 3.5 and 4 billion to increase its production.
Here, Petrotrin has been struggling to cover its costs and doesn’t have the money to make new capital investments. Between PDVSA and Ecopetrol, we pray Mr Roget – like us – will choose the Ecopetrol path.
The odds, though, are not good. As news emerged of the meeting called by Petrotrin for Tuesday, rumours started swirling around Trinidad and Tobago of lock outs, army intervention and other absurdities.
We sincerely hope - and pray - that no one linked to the union is directly or indirectly linked to these rumours designed to destabilise the country and generate further damage to our already difficult situation. That’d would have been well below the belt.
Let’s pray, then. And, if you are of no religious disposition, let’s hope that Mr Roget will pause and listen carefully to Petrotrin’s plans. And offer truly helpful suggestions, aimed at making Petrotrin the best this land can offer. We live in hope.